Nasty hitch hikers... need to eradicate

N

Nickeleye

AC Members
Apr 13, 2004
144
0
0
Visit site
Well everybody, I've had my tank up and running now for about 4 days and today I decided to take some pictures to see if anybody could help me identify what's in the tank. Here's a link to the pics. If I'm not allowed to post a link such as this please tell me and I'll just try to post the image by itself. In any case, I found a nasty aiptasia. Has anybody used Joe's Juice? I obviously don't have any fish, inverts or extra corals in the tank yet so I'm ok in that respect, but I want to try to nail this thing before it's out of control.

Also, of all the reading I've done on these things so far I can't find how quickly they reproduce. They say "quickly", but what's the definition of "quickly"?
 
Problem I heard with these shrimp is that there are 2-3 kinds that look so similar that they are sometimes labeled peppermint shrimp when they aren't. The other problem is that I can't introduce new life into the tank at this point as I'm still trying to lower my amonia levels and balance out the pH.

I ordered some Joe's Juice. I've heard some good things about this stuff so I figure it's worth a try. I don't want to try yanking this off or slicing it causing it to reproduce further so I'm going to give the juice a shot.
 
It looks like an aiptasia in dsc0068. Otherwise, it looks like you got a good crop of cladocora coral, and maybe a siderastrea.

There's nothing wrong with linking to another site, but Reef Central can be slow when traffic is high. Plus, I had to hunt through all the photos to figure out which one you meant. It might be easier to use a site like Aquatic Photos, which allows direct linking to the photos themselves. In this case, since it was only one pic, you could also have attached the photo from your hard drive.

Are you getting a "package" from TBS? If so, you'll get a pile of peppermints. There are also tank-reared peppermints available, so you don't have to worry about the collector identifying them correctly. I'm not a big fan of them, though, so Joe's Juice is probably the way to go.
 
I'll look into labelling the pics and/or placing them on the other site as you mentioned.

I hope Joe's Juice works.

I went to check out the little bugger this morning and it was gone. Don't know if it went in the rocks overnight or moved. How fast can they move? How quick can they reproduce? Lastly, can it kill my brittle star? I have a really sweet one in there.... legs are probably 3-4 inches long and I don't want it to die.

p.s. I didn't write comments for any of those pictures because I really don't know what they are.
 
Aiptaisa will often plant themselves into a hole they can extend out of to feed. They can scrunch into the hole to hide--filling the hole with kalkwasser paste works well to kill them.

They are not a threat to most fish and inverts--the star is safe.
 
So basically you just have to keep an eye out to make sure they don't overrun the tank and stay away from corals, right?
 
Yep. They are like dandelions--don't hurt the grass or plants, but will take over if given the chance.
 
I got my Joe's Juice yesterday and proceeded to wipe out the bugger. Squirted some near it's mouth and tentacles and it quickly retreated back into it's hole. It's been many hours now and I'm thinking it's toast. At least I hope so. If it's still not out when I get home from work I'll consider it dead since that'd be over 24 hrs. since the Joe's Juice treatment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom